


Burning Always

by InsideTH3fire23



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideTH3fire23/pseuds/InsideTH3fire23
Summary: The larger the mark of the soulmate, the stronger the connection.
Relationships: Elijah Mikaelson/Original Female Character(s), Klaus Mikaelson/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue 

The pain slashes and salts through her starting at the top of her spine and shooting downwards. 

Olivia tries to find purchase, clawing at the ground below her and when that isn't enough, she claws at her own skin. It nestles inside of her. The spirits are loud in her head, screaming their hatred. She feels them cutting through her skin and bones and digging thoughtlessly though her magic, trying to rip it away from her. 

The sound of her own screams frighten Olivia, she had never heard herself like this, so broken and agonized. 

It drags. On and on they go. 

Until Olivia can't scream. 

Until all she can do is lay there and spasm in silent unbearable pain. 

Her grandmother, Shelia Bennett, had opened the door and stared at Olivia for a silent second before turning on her heel and leaving. 

It makes her curl into a ball and sob because she isn't a Bennett anymore- something is wrong with her. She wears the marks of the abominations. 

They don't kill her. They can't. 

They just torture her. 

Days turn to weeks. 

They continue until the only thing keeping Olivia alive is spite and the pure defiance inside.

Then they just stop. 

And when Olivia finally is able to leave. Battered and burning and barely able to walk....Shelia Bennett refuses to let her in. 

Next thing she knows at fifteen she's on a bus alone and away. 

That's when she meets Katherine Pierce. 

Katherine had seen one look at the admittedly beautiful art dipping down young Olivia's spine and her eyes had seemed black.

Dead but shining. Shark’s eyes. And she was circling.

She sidled up to Olivia, her head tilted and her smile just predatory enough to put Olivia on edge. "Hey kid," she said smoothly. "Where you headed?"

"Nowhere," the young witch had responded shortly. 

"Hmm," Katherine hummed amusedly. "Can I have a name?"

"Olivia."

"You'll need a new one," Katherine pressed, watching Olivia's breath curl in fingers of steam in the frozen air. 

"Excuse me?" 

"A new name," Katherine said airily. "It was naive of you to offer yours so easily considering who you are."

There was a silence, tense and nearly violent. 

"I'm nothing to anyone."

"You're everything to two important men."

Olivia scoffed," That means nothing to me."

"What about your future?" Katherine insisted firmly. "Do you honestly think you'll survive. No family, no guidance, and a literal target on your back."

"Don't try and manipulate me," Olivia replied, a snarl twisting her lips. "I think you're trying to buy my soul but I don't think it's worth selling."

"Then what do you have to lose?"

"What do I have to gain?"

Katherine laughed a sound that seemed to shock even her. "Perhaps...you aren't as naive as I thought." The woman with cold eyes tilts her head. "But what you will gain is...survival."

Olivia weighed her options for what seemed like hours and then she nodded. 

* * *

"Your beauty will be your most powerful weapon," Olivia sighs, closing her eyes, Katherine's voice soft in her head. 

She tilts Olivia's face upwards. "You have big eyes. They make you look dainty....delicate," Katherine smiles. "That will be useful."

She circles Olivia. 

"Nice bone structure, full lips, long eyelashes," she adds absentmindedly, and a finger drifts warmly over Olivia’s cheek, pressing her hair back behind her ear. "How tall are you?"

"Uh, 5'2," Olivia answers lightly. 

"Doubtful you'll get much taller but it adds to the delicate appeal, I suppose." A conspiratorial smile cuts the corner of Katherine's mouth. Involuntarily, Olivia returns it. There was enough versatility to Olivia's appearance that made it easy for the beholder to project their own preferences onto her. It was almost as if her features could not decide how they wanted to present themselves, so at one time she could appear soft and delicate, then cold and hard, serene and relaxed, rough and abrasive. 

Also useful. 

"You don't have much when it comes to curves but you are still only fifteen," Katherine adds, behind Olivia now, beginning to comb through her hair, always encouraging the waves and wildness of it. 

"Why does it matter?"

Katherine's fingertips drag the back of Olivia’s neck, her free hand coming up to squeeze her shoulder. "Do you know the meaning of that mark you wear?"

"It means something is wrong with me," Olivia responded immediately. 

Katherine chuckles but there is no amusement in that dragging sound. "There are things no supernatural being can touch. Things that were worshipped before the word God came to be. Things that are so wound up in the creation of it all we can't be without them." She pauses, closes her eyes like she can no longer bear to see the world around her. "A thing like that placed that mark on your skin. The meaning is difficult to fully explain but I suppose the closest we've come to is soulmate."

"Soulmates aren't real."

"Oh they are," Katherine murmurs. "Just not for most of us."

The larger the mark, the stronger the bond, the stronger the influence of the other partner. 

And Olivia wears the largest mark she's ever seen. 

Katherine looks at her, makes eye contact, looks hard with her dark eyes that don't seem to have pupils, and she pulls on that thread that Olivia has tried desperately to tuck inside her ribs. It makes her feels both steadily confident and infinitesimal. 

"Klaus Mikaelson and Elijah Mikaelson are yours, Olivia." Katherine whispers and she sounds so true, so sincere it almost burns. 

"You sound so sure of it. I've heard of them- the spirits when they....well they didn't have nice things to say about either of them." Olivia hugs herself. "They said they were cruel...I don't want cruelty."

"Everyone can be cruel."

Katherine wraps her arms around her waist, holding Olivia. It's comforting and warm and the young witch can't remember the last time someone just hugged her. 

"But they won't be to you," she strokes Olivia's hair again. "Just look for them."

"Look for them?"

"Inside," Katherine murmurs. "They are there, inside of you."

There's a rush in her mind as Olivia closes her eyes, all the feelings pushing in at once, a glacier melting into a flood. 

It's easy. Easier than Olivia ever thought it would be to find them. It feels like gear shifting into place, a lock clicking open, like thin ice cracking beneath her feet, she falls. 

Being bathed in sudden sun, warmer and warmer until it stings. It's too much and not enough and it loves her- so fully it loves her, so it devours her. 

_They look back._

She shuts off the connection, slams the door. She quickly realizes she's breathing hard, raggedly against the skin of Katherine's throat. 

"They saw me," she whispers. Even now, when she's trying so hard not to feel it, she can feel the edges of Elijah and Klaus Mikaelson in her consciousness. Prowling like tigers pacing in a cage. It's only a matter of time before they find a way in. 

"Good," Katherine smiles bitingly sharp. "I have so much to teach you."

And she does teach Olivia, over the years. 

She teaches her about beauty. About how to take care of herself, how to be graceful, stunning even. 

Nothing is denied to Olivia. The best skincare, the best makeup, the best workouts, the best teachers. She is given every opportunity to both expand her intelligence and beauty and power. In every way possible. 

It's during a fight when Olivia is seventeen that she figures out why Katherine does this. 

"What is your connection to them? Huh? Why do you care so much about-"

"Olivia we've talked about this," Katherine replied with gritted teeth. 

"No I've talked," Olivia snapped back. "You've never given me any answers. You aren't friends with them and yet you're doing this for them."

"Olivia."

"So either they have something on you or they have something you want."

"I don't think you've grasped your position here," the vampire said primly. "I am the one in power here, not the other way around."

"I don't have the patience for posturing," Olivia replied her words barbed. You're terrified of them, why?" She narrowed her eyes. "What do they have on you?"

"I just want to be free, Olivia. That's all I want."

Olivia closes her eyes. "And you think I'm the way to getting that?"

"I know you are."

Tears fill the young witch's eyes. "So that's all that matters? Me looking pretty for the Mikaelsons?"

"No it isn't all that matters," Katherine crosses the distance between them. "And you know that."

"Do I?" The young witch snorts.

More than anything else, Olivia is simply worried that she will be a disappointment to Elijah and Klaus. 

She does not know if she can keep their attention the way Katherine wants her too. Doesn't know if she even wants it. More than that she is afraid, afraid of herself; of her own _fear,_ of the prospect that she may panic, and have to _pretend_. She would _have_ to pretend; she did not know what other option she may have - familiar as she’s always been with the idea of being tied to perfect strangers, Olivia does not know how to be _honest_ with men she doesn’t know, and certainly does not trust.

She does not know how to be vulnerable, open with them; and she does not _want_ to tell them the truth. Their reactions would be dangerous, and unpredictable; there is a dreadful, cold hole in Olivia’s chest. 

"Olivia. You are the most beautiful girl I've ever met," Katherine begins and Olivia's face just...falls. "But that has never been the beginning and end of you. I want you to survive. That means using every weapon you have available."

Olivia is a plague and a headache and a girl of philosophical discussion and whims. She is a nightmare and a troublemaker, and a great, great witch. 

Katherine cannot deny that. Every day, even in her most troublesome, her most mischievous, that she is extraordinary.

"Okay," Olivia sighs, although her eyes remain sharp. A moody, mercurial, a thing of air and passion and divinity. 

And then two days after Olivia turns nineteen, Katherine leaves. 

When a month passes by and Olivia hasn't heard from her at all she does a tracking spell and finds her...in Mystic Falls. It takes little time for her to pack a bag and begin the trip there. 


	2. Chapter 2

Once she entered town limits, it started, the flow of foreign power directly towards her. 

It's strong enough- something solid enough that she can wrap her mind's fingers around and pull to the surface. Then it's there, crackling beneath her skin and in her eyes.

It's thrilling and terrifying, and she's never felt more like herself. 

She isn't sure what it all means and she doesn't have time to examine it either, because Katherine is here. 

Except- Olivia has spent years with Katherine and within all that time the vampire never would have worn something so....well, plain. And when her eyes drop to her hand, the girl with Katherine's face isn't wearing a daylight ring. 

_Odd._

Kicking her feet up onto the other side of the booth, Olivia sinks lower in her seat, almost hidden. 

Then she begins to hum. 

There's a particular pitch that Olivia learned about when she first started branching out into the arts. It's a pitch that vampires cannot stand. 

It makes them flinch and then glare as if trying to swipe an annoying fly away. 

She watches two men and one blonde flinch but the girl wearing Katherine's face doesn't react in the slightest. 

_Doppelganger._

Olivia's hands dart up to her temples to try and persuade her incoming headache elsewhere. 

The group is shockingly oblivious to their surroundings. 

She learns a lot about them just by being in their vicinity. It's not like they're quiet about the details of their lives and the grill being the place they choose to most often frequent, Olivia learns. 

* * *

The cave is cold and oddly damp and Olivia immediately hates it. In fact she has a special hatred for all of Mystic Falls if she is being truthful. 

She sees Katherine but she isn't alone. 

There's a man in front of her, just in front of her and he's saying things Olivia can't hear. The look on Katherine's face says it all though, she's terrified. 

Olivia could-

"I know you're there," the accented voice says. 

"Come out," A smile curves the lines of the man- no not man, It strikes her that she thinks he is handsome, but not quite human.

An appealing sculpture of something _other_ , only adjacent to the _idea_ of a man. Olivia's eyes flicker over his features, sharp cheekbones, neatly combed hair and shadowed eyes.

There is another weighty silence, and then the predator strides closer to where Olivia stands wearing the skin of a tall, suited man.

"Quite frankly,” He begins, and his voice surprisingly soft, he does not need to be loud to command authority. "I grow tired of these games. Come out. Now."

"Fuck you," is out of her mouth before she can think better of it. 

"Crass," he scolded, in a voice low and unsettlingly calm. Affectless. 

He takes a step closer. 

Elijah feels, coiled at the base of his skull, a flash of awareness, something sharp. 

Then a ripple of pure energy. It smoked against him with a soft insistent seethe. 

Next was the scent, almost driving Elijah to his knees. His eyes slipped closed as his head tilted back, nostrils flaring to drag the scents deep inside. S _torm tossed seas, lightening hovering on the horizon and the sweet, heavy syrup of crushed jasmine petals and honey…._

"Enough of these games. Come out. Now," his voice brokered no arguments or disagreements. Come out or die. 

She moved deliberately slow, slipping out from the darkness. "Please don't hurt her."

And there she was, the patron saint of the ethereally unreal. There is nothing but beauty before him and Elijah had always been so weak in the face of beauty. 

_I will never let you go,_ Elijah thinks in the privacy of his mind, and his 'never' is more than a word, it's a vow. 

"Hello, my darling," Elijah's silken voice is quieted down to a mere whisper. 

"It's you," Olivia replies softly, nearly shaking. He's in front of her in a second. 

They study one another, like two mirrors in the dark, until, slowly reflections emerge.

She lifts her chin, blinking, measured and slow. Then tips her head back showing her neck, a flare of heat cutting through him at the unknowing display of submission- a lovely, deadly thing- and stares at Elijah through the black fringe of her eyelashes. "Don't hurt her."

"I have no intention of doing that."

A shudder vibrates between the space of them. 

She takes a step with the intention to slide past him and to Katherine. He reaches out and grabs her by the waist and with one easy tug she is in his arms. 

The touch burns and soothes and is everything all at once. 

Olivia never considered herself prone to weakness but she most literally melts in his arms. Leaning forward until she could feel his cool breath against her lips, causing- for some inexplicable reason- her knees to go weak. His thumb massaging comforting circles on her lower back, his touch coaxing out a choked gasp.

"I am Elijah Mikaelson," He formally introduced himself with a charming upturn of his lips. "But of that I am sure you are already aware. What is your name, my sweet?"

Defiance dances in the hardness of her eyes.

She pushes him away as hard as her physical body can manage, which, admittedly wasn't much.

"Olivia."

"Are you without a last name?"

"Its not necessary for you to know anything but my first name."

It was sharp, dismissive.... _attractive._

Offering his hand down to her, his eyes dark as night, his lips tipped up arrogantly, "Come along now pet."

"I'm not leaving without Katherine."

Elijah wants to reach out and touch the long lashes that frame those burning eyes of hers. He watches as her fingers curl around each other, jittery and nervous. 

"Olivia," Katherine says nervously, a sort of manic energy building in her voice.

Elijah's low tut is unnerving and cuts through Olivia's sudden anger, and into her, presses her ribs together, steals her, and just when she thinks she might have forgotten how to inhale altogether, he tilts his head consideringly, side to side.

He looks primeval, with the shadows darkening the hollowed space under his eyes and pooling beneath his sharp cheekbones.

He looks terrifying. He looks beautiful.

He looks ready to tear the whole fucking world apart.

"I see, you intended to use my soulmate as a bargaining chip," Elijah says, his eyes darken farther. "Isn't that right, Katerina?"

Katherine is still.

Reptilian almost and then she has Olivia. It is not the soft hold Olivia was accustomed to by Katherine- no, it was a killing grip. 

"What-" Olivia says and her voice wavers as she's gutted with sudden fury and betrayal. 

"Elijah, she's yours, she's all yours- just let me go," Katherine's voice is low and serious. 

He takes a step forward. 

Katherine's nails twist into Olivia's arms, drawing blood and bruising and when that doesn't slow the Mikaelson down he goes for her throat, the young witch gasps in pain. 

Without having to call it forth or coax it out, Olivia's power flares up, so much so that she feels the pressure of it behind her eyes and pressing against the inside of her skin in a desperate search for a way out.

" _Excuse me,_ " she spits out, and just like that, the hands around her throat loosen.

Katherine stands before her, dead eyed and blank faced, Olivia's blood running in rivulets off of her curved fingers.

Olivia is not an idiot. 

She always knew Katherine was using her, but she stupidly thought that at least some part of her cared for Olivia. 

That she wouldn't offer her away like a thing to be sold. 

The girl was supposed to be her family. The family she was supposed to be able to rely on. The pain sinks into her bones, the ache of betrayal simmering close to the edge, making it hard for Olivia to breathe evenly.

"I am not a pawn to be used," Olivia snapped and the words dropped like a heavy stone in ocean water. "Nor am I your weapon against the Mikaelsons."

"Olivia-" Elijah starts, but the Bennett isn't in the mood. 

"I'm not finished."

Vindictive looks downright _amazing_ on Olivia. The anger makes her skin glow, makes her eyes shine bright. 

Elijah thinks he just found a woman worthy of razing empires to the ground for.

"The Mikaelson's have survived a thousand years, I'm not going to be the thing to bring them down-"

"-Olivia-" Katherine murmurs, but her stare is glassy and cool. 

"I am still **speaking** and if someone interrupts me one more time it will be the last time they are capable of talking."

The Goddess Atermis must have made those eyes, and the God of war chose to make them more beautiful by putting fire within them.

"Katherine, I'm going to say this slowly so you might be able to understand. Get off your pedestal and realize the Mikaelson's are nobody's fool, least of all yours."

With a snap of her fingers Katherine's neck is brutally snapped. 

And when she risked a look at Elijah he was, watching her with subtle triumph and pride.

"I'm leaving."

She turned on her heel.

"Olivia-"

"I'm leaving. Whether or not you agree to follow me will have no affect on my decision."

It’s annoying, and disrespectful, and downright rude if Elijah is being honest. She raises one perfect eyebrow (a challenge) and her smile cuts sharper than a scalpel.

"I'm aware," Elijah said curtly.

"Good." She replies smugly, before his name breaks out of her mouth. "And Elijah?"

The original cracks open his eyes; Olivia is hesitant, soft-eyed and soft-mouthed as she stares back. Hesitant. Wanting. It should concern him—how strongly he wants to give her whatever she wants. "Yes, sweetness?"

"Do whatever you want with her."

* * *

Olivia strolls through the smoky, dilapidated bar with her head held high, looking every bit the rebellious princess escaping from her castle. 

"You lost, doll?" A man bellows across the bar, and she looks at him, more like pins him down with those sleepy golden eyes and a small vicious smile spreads across her lips, sinful and enticing.

"Maybe. Care to show me the way?" She asks, her voice softer than what you would expect, with a customary half-smirk, more internal than outward.

The men whoop and whistles at her, and she takes it all in stride, meeting their eyes, not once looking down or away or blushing, as if she owned the place and them along with it.

Elijah only a half step around her, who up until now has been observing her in amused silence- abruptly draws himself to full height.

The motion is extremely calm and controlled without a hint of aggression, but even so there's something sufficiently imposing about the way he draws forward and looms over Olivia that makes the entire bar draw silent and when she glances at his face- she can't suppress a shudder of foreboding because his expression is nothing short of chilling. 

"You- you are rather terrifying," She murmured. It comes out more admiring than she intended. And the knowledge of that is rather uncomfortable and irritating, seeing as she takes great pride in her independence and capacity to take care of herself.

She taps her foot against the side of the bar stool as she sits to the beat of the southern toon playing in the background.

Elijah smiles slightly. All planes and sharp angles. "Are you terrified?"

"I don't fear vampires."

"None at all?"

And yet, right now, she feels instinctively less. As if whatever it is that gives him power, steals from her.

"Nope."

Her eyelids flutter, hiding her from the terrifying, electric onslaught of Elijah's emotions. 

She rests her head on her hand, causing the front of her shirt to open wider. And an eerie feeling, the one a person gets when they witness something truly beautiful wells up in him; that strange and sad feeling, that doomy vertigo. 

"She never told you everything, did she?"

Olivia laughed at that low and sour. Hurt without really understanding why.

"And you will?" Doubt hardens her tone, makes it cold. 

"Now, now," Elijah said mockingly, "I wouldn't take that tone, pet."

She tenses. 

"With that being said, yes. I will tell you everything" Elijah kept his voice sincere, he knew if she sensed any dishonesty she would either coil into herself or lash out violently. "I will tell you everything you want to know, Olivia. Everything I'm sure Katerina has kept from you. All you have to do is come with me."

His body doesn't emit any heat and he smells of cologne, or maybe a modest aftershave. She can feel the breath Elijah doesn't need stir her hair. 

"To where?" She replies quietly. 

"To where I currently reside."

"You do realize we are nothing to each other, right?" Olivia hisses. "You're not my friend, you're not my family, you're not my boyfriend."

The challenge he presented was so vulgar, she didnt think he was capable.

But push a man too far, and he may leave his manners at the door.

The look Olivia was getting now told her to be very careful about what she said next: dead stare and demeanour affectless, as if she was a complete stranger to be easily rid of. Unbothered.

"No," Elijah replied. "I'm just your soulmate."

"And that means I belong to you, right?"

"I think you could and I could belong to you in turn, but that doesn't mean I want to take anything from you."

She shook her head, hard enough that her hair jumped up and hit her cheeks, skittish and almost angry. "I'm a person outside of you."

"I never said you weren't," Elijah returns. 

Elijah grasped her hand, and her fingers tingled where they touched. She was reminded of South American dart frogs, known for secreting poison from their skin, because it seemed as though Elijah's touch was toxic. It always left her breathless and dizzy, and she felt as if she would fall the moment he let go.

He tugged her even closer, though his grip was loose and not restricting.

Olivia could slip away any time she liked- it was a power play. Elijah was giving her the option to pull away, because it just made it all more significant when she didn't.

"You know what I think," Elijah said lightly. "I think you don't know what you want. I think you've had everything taken from you, and you're still trying to get it back. You can't look forward yet- but you will have to, eventually."

"You're an asshole."

"And you're not particularly well-mannered."

This time, Elijah doesn't smile; it falls from his face until there is nothing left but intent, and Olivia echoes him. Maybe she feels it: that thing deep inside her soul that Elijah is searching for.

"You promise you'll tell me everything? You won't leave anything out- even if you think I won't like it."

That's the moment, with the dying sun casting a shadow on her face- and their held together. It's a little thing, a simple touch, and Elijah presses his fingers down over Olivia's palm, so briefly, meets Olivia's eyes in a way that can’t be coincidental.

And she feels a little dizzy, a little resentful, a little drunk.

But she doesn’t hate it. She doesn’t. And that’s what worries her. 

"I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

The home Elijah Mikaelson takes her to is beautifully presented. There was something nearly gloomy about the interior decor, dark color palettes coupled with antiques giving the place a vibe which straddled the line between gothic and classy, while still managing to display an aloof air of wealth. 

It makes Olivia uneasy. 

The empty spaces on the walls beg not for more artwork, but for a more personal touch. The austere furniture seems uninviting and plastic in it's beauty. 

None of it designed for comfort, just aesthetic. 

She kept to the edges of the room, haunting the space like a specter. 

"You know," Olivia finally said to the air. "I've always wondered if you were like the stories they told."

Elijah raised an eyebrow in question.

Olivia shrugged an elegant shoulder. "Noble. Aristocratic almost. Easier to approach...than the others."

Elijah doesn't say anything. Not right away, a handful of seconds pass by. 

"So far have I been what you expected?"

"Yes and no."

Elijah is more pretense than pretension. All design, a deliberate one; constructed to give the idea of nobility and sophistication. Though he had yet to be cruel to her and she had no evidence of it, she also sensed a streak of ruthlessness in him- perhaps the price he paid for the incredible power he wielded. 

"Can you give me the truth?" She’s looking at him squarely, unwavering and unrelenting; eyes endlessly golden. 

"I have no desire to lie or mislead you, Olivia." He waves his hand to the couch, "I suggest getting comfortable, it is a rather long tale."

She eyes him warily, before sitting down. Elijah sat closely beside her, his thigh pressing against hers purposefully, no regard at all for personal space. She feels dwarfed by all of him- she'd always been small, short, but he seems to emphasize that point. 

"I suppose it begins with the first person who died," then he shatters that barrier between her mind and his, overrides her own neural impulses, short-circuiting them like an electrical storm. 

It's too easy for him to break down the wall. _He's been picking at it for years._

A gasp shoots from her mouth and her body folds into his side. 

" _Henrik died too young,"_ he says. 

_A young boy with dark hair and the brightest eyes known to man._

_She burns at the sight of Niklaus._

_Feels horror at the wolves._

"Oh no," She whispers, dread gripping her heart with cold fingers at the sight of Niklaus running with a bloody Henrik in his arms. 

"A loss of potential I still mourn to this day. But it's an old wound, and only throbs occasionally." Before Olivia can offer apologies or condolences, Elijah continues. "I don't mind speaking of him, in what small ways I can." His eyes travel to hers and it's more intimate than a physical touch. "I want to honor him, in some way, when his life was so tragically lost."

The following chain of events are no easier to stomach. 

_The change._

_Niklaus becoming more than a vampire._

_A_ _mother's betrayal coming to light._

_The curse._

It plays before her eyes quickly, spiraling after one another. 

And when it comes to the present and Olivia's mind is released from Elijah's she is slow to recognize how much of herself is curled into him. 

Somehow she had transitioned from beside him to on his lap, her head tucked beneath his chin, a bit too private, a bit too close. His fingers playing with her hair, curling the strands around, looping them. 

"Do you understand now?" His voice is thick and oddly quiet, as though he's afraid to break the peaceful silence. 

And she does. 

Elijah's hand massages the side of her waist, causing her shirt to rise just the slightest bit. He pauses for a moment at the edge of the fabric before slipping under. 

It would be fine- truly- but his hand is touching an old scar. It's healed over so Elijah wouldn't know it was there unless he physically saw it- but the memories of being tortured (the pure brokenness of it all) has her jumping away. 

She stumbles over her own two feet in a hurry to get away, tripping and nearly falling until her back hits the wall. 

"Oliv-"

"Don't," she snaps and the lights flicker off and on. "Please...just don't."

It's a reminder of what it means to be attached to them. A cold reminder that leaves her shaking. A flash of pain, years old but still horribly fresh. 

She pulls herself together though because Elijah hadn't stopped watching her- not for a second, and his eyes- his eyes were on her side, glaring as if they could burn through clothes and see what scared her. 

She couldn't meet his eyes. 

"So you need a human doppelganger to break the curse?" Olivia said and when her voice wavered she instantly felt pathetic. "Katherine wanted to give Nik- Klaus everything he would need so he would free her in return...and I'm guessing I was supposed to sweeten the deal."

Elijah nodded. 

"That still doesn't explain why you are here."

"Doesn't it?" Elijah felt amusement wrap around the space like a lazy cat. 

"No," Olivia said sharply. "It doesn't. Unless your brother is with you somewhere or you're preemptively checking to make sure everything is ready for him."

His face spasms with a certain expression but its quickly pulled away and hidden before Olivia can read into it. 

"Niklaus will be here soon enough."

It's not an answer. It's misdirection. He's not saying something. 

"When? When will he be here?"

"I don't know when," he said evenly. "Any answer I could offer would be sheer speculation."

"Then speculate." Olivia nearly snapped out the words. 

"On the basis of what?" His tone was a bit harsher as well. 

She drew an audible breath. "You asked me to follow you, to accept going with you without posing too many questions, and I agreed to that. But I didn't agree to stop thinking, Elijah."

Elijah's gaze flickers over to her, it lasted only a moment, but she caught it- a flash of acute suspicion, followed by the tell-tale curve of a half-smile. Something about that smile struck her particularly, for it was simultaneously vexed and pleased, and perhaps just a touch impressed.

"I never asked you to stop thinking."

"Then don't be vague with the details and expect me not to think them over."

Elijah's tongue traces out the answer within the narrows of his mouth, as his eyes drop in sudden contemplation. "Think what you like but be careful in drawing any conclusions."

She feels the urge to pace, to move, to do something with all this nervous energy boiling inside of her. 

Olivia isn't smart enough or talented enough or calculated enough to maneuver herself through this and she isn't even sure if she wants to.

She feels incredibly naive, coming to this town again and expecting anything good to come from it. 

"I should go."

"Olivia-"

"I'm tired."

"Darling," Elijah whispered, his voice like a physical touch on the side of her cheek. "Are you angry with me?"

"No, I'm just tired," she murmured before giving him a ghost of a smile. "It's been a long day."

"Olivia..."

"I'm fine."

"Stay, my flower, stay. We can—"

"I can't." She shakes her head. "I really should have never come back here."

"You intend to leave town altogether?" Elijah asked. The creases of his eyes vanish as he gazes at her long and hard, gauging the danger of her words, or perhaps paging through an internal pile of evidence as if it were made for him. 

He let's his thumb rub against his chin, giving the impression of a brooding man. "Stay with me, Olivia." Coaxing as best as he could. "I always intended to seek you out, to find you, don't leave now that I've finally done it."

"But you didn't find me," Olivia said quietly. "Katherine orchestrated it all."

Elijah chuckles a low and dark sound. "Either way, you are here and so am I, and I am asking you not to leave me." 

And Olivia, for all the things she is good at, is not good at this- at conversations that matter, and conversations that don't, and this is so far out of the realm of normal and so she tries to steer them back into the realm of boundaries and professionalism. "You don't even know me."

"Not yet."

"What if I'm not her, that image you created in your head of what I'm supposed to be...what then?"

"Then I will accept you as you are."

"And what if we don't fit together the way the universe wants us to?"

His mouth closed, jaw set. When he spoke again there was an otherworldly quality to his voice. "I can be reshaped."

_There's a primal urge to care for Olivia—and there's that word flashing through his mind again, “mate,” like they truly are wild things._

"I'll stay. But that's it. I'm not promising any more."

"God forbid we become friendly," his voice is a smooth purr, and it's not quite mocking- more of an invitation, if only she is brave enough or stupid enough to take it.

_A dare, if Olivia wasn't mistake._

Tempting her, to what- she isn't sure- not yet.

She scoffed a little, complete with a rebuff to hit the Mikaelson where it hurt- in the impeccably dressed (vain, she'd known it at first glance) man's ego.

"I don't find you interesting enough for that."

Elijah held in a barred teeth grin.

If Olivia was trying to push him away she'd have to try a lot harder than that. Elijah always got what he wanted. And with every dodge and deflection, Olivia simply whetted Elijah's appetite for him to crack open that mind of hers and discover the way it worked.

"Being uncomfortable makes you rude."

Her eyelashes fluttered prettily.

"Maybe you can take some time and reflect on that," Olivia replies casually. "You've little to do otherwise it seems."

Elijah stared at her like a starving man stares at a three course meal.

"You are a delight. An utter delight, Olivia."

"Oh I know," She replied. "I know."

Mere minutes before Olivia stood across from the original, and told the ancient vampire she didn't find him interesting.

No one's ever made her a liar so quickly

* * *

Bonnie feels Olivia before she sees her. The raw power, circling like some beacon.

Bonnie doesn't react at first to seeing her cousin. Doesn't feel anything. Until Olivia tilts her head just so, like she's considering something very important.

She's caught momentarily by the way Olivia moves, quiet, hardly more than a swish of fabric and the click of her heels.

And then there is anger.

She walks, she paces.

Up and down, up and down. She paces because her legs need to move. They need to walk for all the times they hadn't walked.

“We should talk,” Olivia spoke evenly. It was infuriating.

“Sure, Liv,” Bonnie said casually, “Did you have a particular topic in mind?”

The other Bennett scoffed, and Bonnie wanted nothing more than to spin around and douse her in hot coffee for being so brazen. 

Her blood boiling. The sand inside was burning hot and choking her, from everywhere, and then it alternated with freezing cold. Her mind going blank with swear words she was unwilling to release. She wanted to get blind drunk, and scream, and cry, and drown herself in the nonexistent sea.

"Bonnie."

"I'm fine."

Or as fine as she could be on any given day.

Even if her magic is flaring out uncontrollably.

But Olivia looks calm in front of the growing winds and static in the air, a half- smile curving her full lips.

"Walk with me," She says quietly.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Bonnie snarls, echoing her inner thoughts, even as she paces back and forth in front of Gram's house. "If you want something from me, you're going to have to tell me now."

Olivia huffs, as if Bonnie is the difficult one, her eyes cutting. "I don't want anything- I just-"

"What? Want a piece of Grams' will?"

Her eyes darken in response, and the temperature seems to drop ten degrees. She looks deadly with anger, but soon enough her shoulders fall and all that anger curls right back inside of her.

"I don't care about that."

"Then what do you fucking care about, seeing as sticking around and not leaving me wasn't a big priority of yours."

Because damn it all to hell, she doesn't know this woman. This woman who stands tall (despite her short height), and dresses differently. Bonnie doesn't know this woman who glides with every step instead of clumsily dancing around, she doesn't know this woman whose smile doesn't automatically jump when looking at her. 

Bonnie doesn't know her cousin at all. And it hurts in the worst way.

She almost wishes Olivia just stayed away.

"Do you even remember why I left?"

Bonnie scoffs," You got in a fight with Grams and you ran away."

Olivia forces herself not to flinch.

"A fight about what, Bonnie? What was your Grandmother so upset at me for?"

"Does that matter," Bonnie finally snaps, stomping her foot as her chest heaves erratically. She wants to punch this woman in the face, and claw at her skin until she finds her blood. _"You left me to-"_

Olivia shakes her head, not willing to listen to this any longer in case she does something cruel. She has a tendency to lash out in the worst ways.

"I wasn't given a choice, Bonnie."

Bonnie freezes because she in no shape or form remembers that. She tries to meet Olivia's eyes but she looks anywhere but her.

"She made me leave, and yeah I could have come back but I didn't because I wasn't in any place where I could come back and not destroy myself in the process."

"That's not true."

"Believe what you will," she says after a long moment. "I didn't come back for your forgiveness."

That causes Bonnie to scowl. "Then why did you come back?"

“If you figure that out,” Olivia laughed mirthlessly, “-feel free to let me know.”

The comment threw Bonnie off guard, and she watched the other Bennett fiddle nervously with her hands. Olivia looked conflicted; ashamed, even.

“Are you okay, Olivia?” she asked, probably far too late.

“Not really.” 

She choked back a sob.

Ugh. 

It was so typical of Olivia to play the sympathy card when she was in trouble, but it worked every time. Bonnie shuffled over to place a tentative hand on her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. She felt Olivia's hand reach up to cover her own.

“You’re mad at me aren’t you?” She sniffed, “For never even trying to contact you."

Bonnie stiffened. Of course she was. They were still _family._ Starting together, ending together. That was the deal.

"Yes, I am, I guess I don't understand after all these years....why now?"

“I saw an opportunity, and I took it.” Olivia stated simply, like it was the only rational argument she could’ve possibly presented to justify the timing of her machinations.

Bonnie turned to the other Bennett. “Do you still think it was the right decision?”

They both heard it.

The question behind the question.

The one that might’ve been a little selfish, but that Bonnie needed an answer to nonetheless. The one that begged for reassurance; any kind of sign this relationship between them was worth it. The one that agonised over whether or not the numerous breakdowns, fights, midnight mishaps and tear-filled silences they’d shared had all been for nothing. 

“I think,” Olivia shrugged, “I should’ve called you years ago.”

Silence falls but Olivia isn't quite done yet. 

"I think we also need to talk about the Doppelganger."


End file.
